There is a need for more refined assessments to be made of the methodologies currently
applied in Shoreline Management Plans and Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management
Strategies to ascertain coastal erosion risk and identify and value the assets at
risk, looking ahead over the next one hundred years.

The greater the erosion risk to property, the more likely the frontage will obtain
the benefit-cost ratio required to achieve a Hold The Line policy, thereby potentially
attracting funding for future works. Still, if methods are under- or indeed over-predicting
erosion then there could be significant implications for future policy setting and
central government funding distribution.

Coastal and Geotechnical Services, Halcrow and the Channel Coastal Observatory (CCO)
undertook the work for this project.

As an introduction to the project, the CCO used a coarse method to identify “hotspots”
across the SCOPAC region where more than 40 properties are at risk from erosion and/or
flooding within Shoreline Management Plan “Management Unit” boundaries over the next
100 years - see Figure 1 below

With a focus on sites under threat from instability, erosion and erosion followed
by flooding, case studies for each geomorphology type were selected from the list
of hotspots, ensuring a variety of examples were taken from across the SCOPAC region.
These include the following case studies identified in Figure 2 below

Channel Coast Observatory £26,000

Halcrow £20,500

Coastal and Geotechnical Services £14,000

Management/Printing £5,725

Contingencies £3,000

The ACCESS project report has been published and is freely available to download
(right).

Each case study details historical and predicted future geomorphological evolution,
coastal monitoring, coastal management, adaptation of the shoreline and lessons learnt.
A critique of Shoreline Management Plan erosion methods and national methods of erosion
prediction was also undertaken for a selection of sites, as was the data used for
assessing assets at risk and the monetary values applied to the assets at risk.